


Changelings

by TreacleTeacups



Series: Drabbles n Oneshots [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ... humour? idk, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, One Shot, Time Travel, fierce momma bear Harry, that tom has no knowledge of, tom has feelings and doesn't know what to do with them, tom is very confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreacleTeacups/pseuds/TreacleTeacups
Summary: “Whose children are these?” Tom Riddle hisses. His voice is deathly quiet and yet it carries unnaturally through the common room.No one answers him. The students look shocked. Behind him, Tom hears the rustling of a child. He steadfast ignores the noise.“Someone better fess up or the brats’re getting kicked out into the cold,” Abraxas drawls.“Daddy,” one of the children says.In which two random children won't stop calling Tom 'dad' and it's actually driving him insane.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Drabbles n Oneshots [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859008
Comments: 33
Kudos: 535





	Changelings

“Whose children are these?” Tom Riddle hisses. His voice is deathly quiet and yet it carries unnaturally through the common room.

No one answers him. The students look shocked. Behind him, Tom hears the rustling of a child. He steadfast ignores the noise.

“Someone better fess up or the brats’re getting kicked out into the cold,” Abraxas drawls.

Tom suppresses an eye roll. He does not enjoy making empty threats; he personally could not threaten to throw out what was likely two pureblood snots. But Abraxas can, Heir Malfoy that he is. Tom reminds himself to crucio the blond the next chance he gets.

“Daddy,” one of the children says. It cannot possibly be more than six.

Tom half-turns, sending the pipsqueak a degrading look of disgust. The child is unaffected. It smiles up at him sunnily. Tom’s dark glare is unusually ineffective; perhaps the little boy is half-basilisk, to be able to brush off such a death glare.

“Don’t be such an arse, dad,” the slightly older one says, sending Tom a look of such arch superiority that he wouldn’t be surprised if she actually _were_ his spawn. She looks nearly old enough to be a first years - perhaps she has just started at Hogwarts.

“I’m getting Slughorn,” Tom says slowly, suppressing the urge to simply begin casting dark magic. He does not enjoy requesting the help of his shirty Head of House but, other than banishing the brats, he cannot imagine what else to do with two strange children hanging out in the Slytherin common rooms, calling him _dad_.

“Ew, don’t bother,” the girl says, flicking a lock of raven black hair over her shoulder, slate grey eyes rolling in disgust. “We’ll find our own way out.”

With that, the young girl picks up the smaller boy and hoists him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the young boy giggling as he is marched out of the common room. From over the girl’s shoulder, the little green-eyed boy sends Tom a happy wave, grinning widely as he is unceremoniously carted away.

Tom stifles a scoff. No matter how improbable and ridiculous the thought of meeting his own children is, it is the silliness of the youngest child that really drives the point home.

These certainly weren’t Tom’s kids, impossibilities of timelines not even being considered. After all, he’d never be able to raise a child that could grin like that.

* * *

For six blissful months, the children were gone. It is a relief as he’d only just been able to salvage his reputation, no matter how physically impossible it would be to literally have two children at his age, especially one hardly seven years younger than him. It would have been a total scandal had he not bullied his entire house into keeping their mouths shut.

Naively, Tom thought he’d seen the last of them.

How very, very wrong he was.

“You are too heavy,” Tom grunted, the small child on his back weighing him down.

“He’s perfectly average for his age,” the young girl snapped. She had yet to give Tom her or the little boy’s name.

Small hands wove around Tom’s neck, the little boy plastering himself to Tom’s back and babbling excitedly as the Head Boy towed the strange children back to Hogwarts. The waning full moon cast just enough light to see where to go through the thick underbrush of the Forbidden Forest.

“What are you two doing out here on Samhain?” Tom snarled, pointedly ignoring the cheek of the little girl. _If she weren’t some rich pureblood girl, he would make her disappear -_ “You interrupted a powerful ritual.”

“Mum gets really annoying on Halloween,” the girl replied, stepping over a log daintily. “We thought we’d come hang out with you, dad.”

“I’m not your father,” Tom growled.

“Sure,” the young girl said breezily. Despite her being two steps ahead and looking away from him, Tom could practically _hear_ her rolling her eyes.

Tom grits his teeth. _Evil little changelings._

* * *

After Samhain, the children appeared out of the woodwork like worm lice.

“Mum says I’m not allowed to join the Quidditch team yet,” the young girl says out of the blue, interrupting Tom’s studying. “Such a hypocrite.”

Tom looks up, eyes sore from studying for hours. It must be near midnight, the eerie green light of the Slytherin common rooms bathing the young girl in a haunting verdant glow.

“Sure,” Tom says, too tired to be articulate (or anything other than annoyed, really).

“Can I join the team?” The girl asks, rocking back on her heels.

“I genuinely don’t give a flying fuck,” Tom snaps, at his wit’s end.

“Cool, thanks dad,” the girl drawls, sending him a sly smirk, and she disapparates with a flourish.

Tom blinks. Rubs his eyes. Had he really just seen an eleven year old girl appear before him, ask for permission to play Quidditch, and then silently successfully disapparate?

 _I’m too tired_ , Tom thinks. _It’s simply exhaustion. I’m hallucinating._

Tom goes to bed.

* * *

The final straw comes on his second to last day of school, just before graduation. The little boy, now seven, trips off a dock and falls into the Black Lake and Tom finds himself diving in after the child.

Tom tells himself it is because he’d ruin his distinguished social position if he let a pureblood boy drown. He pointedly doesn’t think about the likely possibility that the child _isn’t_ a pureblood (no adult had ever come to claim him in the child’s wild moments of appearance) and that Tom’s heart had nearly lodged itself into his throat at the sight.

Sopping wet and carrying a delightfully squealing monster child up the shore, Tom darkly glares at the quietly laughing girl.

“You know he can swim, right?” She asks snarkily.

“Aquila Gaunt Potter,” a voice states icily, breaking the strangely light atmosphere.

Tom watches ‘Aquila’ turn the shade of snow, her mouth dropping open as she turns sharply on her heel.

Tom follows the girl’s line of sight and he is momentarily arrested. The most handsome man Tom has ever seen glares fiercely at the young girl, hands on his hips and looking the striking image of _disappointed parent_. His raven locks are wildly tousled, practically sticking up on end with sizzling magic, and his fathomless, deep green eyes burn with fury. He is _stunning_.

“Mum!” The little boy in Tom’s arms squeals and wiggles out Tom’s grip in a flash, leaping into the suddenly tender stance of the young man. “Nyx,” the young man breathes, cuddling the boy close, beckoning for Aquila to come to him as well for a hug. "And you shouldn't be telling him to call me _mum_ ," the man admonishes a churlish Aquila, "I'm _papa_ and you know it."

“ _Mum_?” Tom chokes.

With the heat of a midday sun, those piercing green eyes suddenly affix on Tom and he straightens, vaguely aware that he’s tensing his torso and arms so his slim, tall frame stands out sharply in his wet clothes. Eyes that green would have surprised Tom under normal circumstances, but he's been exposed to Nyx's verdant gaze enough times now to dismiss their eerie shade.

“Oh,” the young man breathes abruptly, gaze going soft. He looks down at his children, his aura of dark fury dissipating. “I see why you used the time mirror.”

“Dad’s so busy campaigning,” Aquila said uncomfortably, crossing her arms as if she were embarrassed by the reveal of some great humiliation.

Tom’s eyebrows drew together, utterly confused.

'Mum/Papa’ dropped to his knees, setting Nyx down carefully and he hugged Aquila close, despite the girl’s squirming protests. “I’ll tell him to come home more often. You shouldn’t need to go back into his past to get his attention. He loves you, baby, sometimes he just needs a reminder to show you.”

Tom feels flat-footed, watching this tender interaction. He hates feeling lost; his confusion gives way to sudden righteous anger. It takes him six sharp steps and then he’s up in the man's personal space, teeth bared. The green-eyed man straightens, alarmed, and Tom growls as he shoves his face down until it’s an inch away from the man’s hardening expression.

“You let your children wander around a dangerous school without supervision multiple times. You are a terrible parent and should have your children removed from you,” Tom hisses venomously.

Tom heard Aquila whisper a weak _oh shit_ before the soft, slighter man’s expression flickered and then _he_ was backing _Tom_ up, the wand that miraculously materialised in his white knuckled grip sparking with uncast magic where it was shoved under Tom’s ribs.

“Listen here, you ignominious fuckwit,” the man hissed, “My children are the smartest fucking brats in the universe. They have enough of their father’s blood to figure out how to repair a time mirror without me knowing for most likely _months_ and enough of _my_ blood to use it to raise hell. Only _I’m_ able to tame them, you don’t know shit, and if you ever threaten to take them away from me again I’ll castrate you, fuck the consequences. I’ll figure out how to have them on my own.”

Tom blinks down at the spitfire snarling in his face, taken aback by the pure _power_ radiating from the man.

Suddenly, it all clicks into understanding.

Time mirror. Consequences. Campaigning. These are his _children_. From the future. This spitfire is his - his - well, simply that. _His._

Tom surges forward and wraps his arms around the shorter man, crushing him in close.

“So you’re telling me that I really am _daddy_?” Tom purrs, something feral and innate and instinctive making him want to bend this beautiful creature over and shatter him.

Green eyes give Tom a wild, wide eyed stare, pupils dilating and a soft mouth opening in surprise.

“Uh - ” The man says weakly, stupidly.

“I see who Nyx takes after,” Tom drawls, leaning closer so his breath whispers across pink lips.

“Wow, you’re such a fucking prat,” the young man replies breathily, “and I am weirdly into it.”

“Ew, mum,” Aquila admonished as Nyx pulls on the young man’s dress robes.

“Oh, right, the children,” the man breathes, green eyes dilated to near black as he stares up at Tom, expression lost and wanting.

Before Tom could protest, the young man was pulling away and gathering his- no, _their_ children.

“What’s your name?” Tom asked as the young man opens a portal dismissively, still lightly blushing across his sharp cheekbones. “I’ll find you in the future.”

The young man sends Tom a wry look, lips twisted in dark amusement.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, _daddy_ ,” he positively purrs in response. “I’ll find you first.”


End file.
